Feb. 3, 2012 - Would this happen to me in NYC?

Okay, I realize I'm really getting behind here.  I have a few things jotted down for various days, but I think I need to come up with a plan to get caught up.  I definitely can't skip certain things, like when Andrew told the toll booth operator, "I don't speak English!"  (more on that in Feb. 4's post)  But for now....

There was a PTA Welcome Coffee today at a parent's house in Hiroo (different part of Tokyo).  The previous Saturday at the swim meet, a woman had come up to me and introduced herself.  She'd seen me at the Saturday bus stop two weeks in a row and so figured that I must live in her neighborhood.  We exchanged email addresses and later she invited me to ride with her and a friend, who had a car, to the PTA coffee.  I thanked her and told her that if she would just give me her address, I could meet her and her friend at her apartment building; I'm getting much better with the iPhone map.

Well, while I am getting better, it helps if I have a correct address.  Karen sent me her address and walking directions from the train station.  Before I set out, I looked at her address on google maps, and based on her walking directions, I figured out she must have sent me an incorrect number in the address (more on addresses in a bit).  There was no need for me to walk all the way to the train station, so I decided to use my iPhone to join up to her walking directions, and then follow her directions to her apartment.  After going past a school on my right, the road was supposed to go the left and go up a hill.  Unfortunately, there was a left turn right past the school that went up a hill, so I took it, but Karen meant for me to keep going and the road I was on would curve to the left and go up a hill.  So I'm at the top of the hill, holding my iPhone and walking around, trying to see if there's anything that looks like it could be Karen's apartment building.  I'm just now thinking that there must be a problem with the walking directions.  Do I retrace my steps and hope I can figure out the glitch?  Do I give up and call Karen?  Then an older (meaning "older than me") Japanese woman walks up to me and asks if I need help.  I explain I'm looking for a friend's apartment building and, luckily, I knew the name of the building.  She was familiar with it, and since she wasn't sure how to explain to me directions to get there, she instead walked me all the way to the apartment building.  Arigatou gozaimasu!  (Thank you very much!)


Here's a little bit more info on addresses:
In Japan, you start with the largest unit and work down to the smallest.  So our address would be
Japan
151-0064 (the postal code)
Tokyo (the prefecture)
Shibuya-ku (our city or ward)
Uehara (our district)
2-14-2 (the first 2 is our area, 14 is our neighborhood, and the second 2 is our building)
               (a note on the number of the building: it's often based on when the building was built)
#101 (our apartment number)
last name, then first name

Don't worry about addressing things to us this way.  You can keep using the conventions of the States, where we start with the individual and go the other way.  Mail addressed like that makes it to us just fine.

I read a description that addresses in Japan are based on a spatial instead of a linear organization.  The author described is as being like a pie.  You cut the pie in slices, and then you take each slice and cut it in smaller pieces, and so on until everyone has a piece of the pie.  All I can say is thank goodness for Google maps and my iPhone.  I really couldn't find anything just based on its address.

Japanese word of the day:  juusho  (click to hear pronunciation) means "address"

Feb. 1, 2012 - Money matters

Well, I've been waiting for Drew to write his part for today about his exchange with a bank teller.  That's what the hold-up has been.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

First, my "money matters:"

Japan is very much a cash-based society.  Many places do not take credit cards, and personal checks are not used here.  We used to walk around in the U.S. with $20 in our pocket and think nothing of it.  Here we feel underdressed if we don't have at least 30,000 yen in our wallets.  So if personal checks aren't used in Japan, how do we pay our various utility bills?  Why, at the 7-11, of course!  Today I paid my first bill at the conbini (convenience store).  And yes, there are 7-11's here, though that wasn't the specific one where I paid my bill.  I gave the cashier my bill, he scanned the barcode, I gave him the cash, and he gave me a stamped receipt.  Pretty easy (though it feels a little odd)!

Now, Drew's "money matters:"

Today I needed to move 600,000 JPY from my bank account to that of the car dealer (note from Jen: we're buying a car).  While this can be done online, if you don’t have a Japanese keyboard (or read Japanese, for that matter), the online route is a bit difficult.  Fortunately, I have a Citibank branch in my office building, so I popped down there at lunchtime to get things squared away.  Armed with my trusty printout of the email with instructions from the car dealer, I approached the teller with the normal amount of trepidation.  I successfully told her what I wanted to do, and she explained that she could perform this transaction at her window, but it would cost 850 JPY (about 12 USD).  However, this could be performed at the ATM machine for a smaller charge (425 JPY), which she would be happy to assist me to perform.  She offered this service in a very apologetic manner, as it seemed to me that she felt that even the 425 JPY charge was excessive, and it was a personal failing that she couldn’t conceive of a manner to assist me and further reduce the charge.

First, however, we needed to call and, by using my phone banking pin (which I fortunately had in hand), increase the transaction limit so I could do this at the ATM.  The teller placed the call to the phone banking center, navigated the prompts, and handed me the phone to enter the pin.  She took the phone back and got me to an agent who spoke English, where I bumped my limit up (it took effect immediately).

We then walked over to the ATM together, where she pretty much drove for the entire experience, save entering my pin, and my verifying that a few details had been entered correctly.  Total elapsed time, about 15 minutes.  I’m sure the Citibank execs back in the US who set this counter fee at 850 JPY are quite pleased with themselves for extracting the right value for this service.

P.S.  I went back a few days later to do another transfer and then noticed a small sign on the ATM instructing those who require assistance to go get a teller who will gladly help them.  Only in Japan …

Japanese word of the day:  conbini  (click to hear pronunciation) means "convenience store"

Jan. 31, 2012 - Where's my stop?

We had a plumbing issue Monday.  We purchased a plunger Monday night but were unable to resolve it ourselves, so today I called the realty management company.  They had a plumber come around 2:30; he spent about half an hour and then he had the realty management company call me to say that he would be back around 5:00 with a different tool.  (He didn't speak any English other than the word "toilet.")  At 5:00 another plumber showed up and started to work.  He was here until 6:30 and had a third plumber here for part of the time with him.  I don't know what the problem ended up being, but clearly it was a problem we were not going to be able to solve on our own.  Meanwhile, Greer had texted me from the late bus to let me know when she was on her way after swim practice.  Some time passed, and around 5:15 I got another text from her letting me know that she thinks she's missed her stop.

Here is our text message exchange:

Greer: I have HW in 2 classes
Mom: See if you can do a little HW on the bus
Greer: Ok
Mom: I can't meet you at the bus stop because I have to wait for the plumber.
Greer: Ok
......
Greer: Well, I am just gonna close my eyes for a bit 'cause I am kind of tired.
Mom: Okay
......
Greer: Mom, I don't know if we passed our stop already.
Greer: I looked at a map and we seem to be going away from our house.
Greer: What do I do?
Mom: Ask the bus monitor if you passed the 7-11.
Greer: I don't know where they are but Beth is here should I ask her?
(Beth is Greer's friend, one of the Webb kids.  When taking the late bus, she normally gets off before Greer at a subway stop and takes the subway the rest of the way home.  She lives farther into Tokyo, and by taking the subway, she can beat the bus sometimes by 15-20 minutes.)
Mom: Yes, but I think Beth gets off before you.
........
Greer: I am going to stop at Beth's house and you can pick me up.
Mom: How do you think I'm picking you up?
Mom: Find the bus monitor.
Mom: I can't come get you.
Greer: I am going to take another bus home, the bus monitor told Beth to show me how to get home.
Greer: By taking a bus route
(Greer actually means the subway, not a bus.)
Mom: Did you get on the wrong bus?
Greer: I don't know. I think I just missed my stop.
Mom: How are you getting home?
Mom: Make sure bus monitor knows you don't know your way around.
(I could see Greer not wanting to "inconvenience" the bus monitor.)
Greer: Train
Mom: Do you have money?
Greer: Beth is lending me.
Mom: Is she going to help you buy a ticket?
Greer: Yes
Mom: Do you know your stop?
Greer: I get off at yogihachiman.
Mom: Yoyogi uehara
Mom: C1 on the Chiyoda line
......
Mom: Did you see my message about your stop?
Greer: Yes
Mom: Message me on the train and when you get to the station.
Greer: Ok
Greer: On train
Mom: Going to Yoyogi uehara, right?
Greer: Yes
Greer: What exit do I get off on?
Mom: Yoyogi uehara
Mom: C1
Greer: K
Greer: Arrived
Mom: Do you know how to walk home?
(She should. We've walked this many times.)
Greer: Will use map to get home 
(So, no, she did not know how to walk home.  But the iPhone map brought her.)

Greer's friend Beth didn't just help her buy her ticket.  She also rode the train with her because I don't think she trusted Greer to know where she was going (maybe because I had to tell Greer the stop three separate times - this is the stop we ALWAYS use).  But Greer did experience her first subway ride without a parent and she made it home safely.  I liked the part where Greer thought I could just come pick her up.  Never mind I had two non-English-speaking plumbers in the house.  There's the small detail that I don't have a car (and even if I did, would I be able to drive it to where she was?).  Maybe Greer will emerge at the end of this adventure having gained some (more) life skills.

Jan. 30, 2012 - Taiko

ASIJ offers various extracurricular activities after school.  Some of them, like an interest club or an athletic team, are free, and others are classes in which outside instructors are brought to the school, which is done for a fee.  This can be quite convenient since otherwise it could be quite a challenge to get your child to an after school activity.  Instead, they sign up for a class at ASIJ, stay late on the appropriate day, and then take the late bus home.  Very easy for me!  Cooper chose to take a taiko class (you can see a picture and a video about taiko in the Jan. 3 post).  I asked Cooper to write about his taiko class:

I have a taiko class after school on Mondays.  Taiko is Japanese drumming.  My teacher is very loud, and he/she sometimes yells "Yahhh!" and then we all hit the drums like crazy.  (I can't tell if my teacher is a boy or a girl.)  We just finished a piece called "Running Horse," and now we're starting a piece called "Dragon Country and Tiger Country."  We each have our own drumsticks to keep.  The drums are in the music classroom at school.  We don't read music in the class.  We follow what the teacher does.  We bang the drums when he/she bangs his/her drums and then we get into the rhythm of it and know what to do.  After taiko class, I take the late bus home.

Jan. 28, 2012 - I think I ordered the spaghetti?

We decided that not everybody needed to go to the swim meet today.  Cooper could get the day off from having to sit through another very long swim meet, and Drew would have the chance to do a few things around the house.  This ended up being extra good for Cooper when he was asked by his friend Isaac to spend the night Friday night.  Speaking of Friday night, I forgot to write about our dinner last night.  There is a street we walk down on our way to the subway station that we call "the green street."  (This is not its actual name.  It's just that it has green paint on the ground along the sides of the road.  We have no idea what its actual name is, or the name of almost any other street, for that matter.  Dave Barry is pretty funny on this issue.  We recommend chapter 3 of "Dave Barry Does Japan.")  On the green street is a tiny restaurant called Bacca Bacca that Drew suspected was an Italian restaurant and he has been wanting to try it. 

  If you look carefully above the "Bacca Bacca" in the sign, you can see the word "trattoria."  Unfortunately for us, "trattoria" on the sign and "antipasto" on the menu were the only words we were able to recognize.  Everything else was in Japanese.  Now, while many restaurants have English along with the Japanese on their menus, that is by no means widespread.  However, very many restaurants have plastic displays of their food or they have pictures of their food.  So, we can place an order by pointing to the appropriate display or picture.  At Bacca Bacca, no such luck.  Greer was ready to pack it in, and I was ready to just randomly point to an item on the menu and hope for the best.  Drew, however, was determined.  This is a man who likes his Italian food.  By using a translate app on his iPhone, he was able to communicate enough with the waiter to figure out where on the menu the pastas were.  Then the chef came out (I said this was a tiny restaurant).  He didn't speak any English either, but he was able to say the words "arrabiata," "pepperoncini," and "carbonara,"  and point to the item on the menu.  So we ordered those three pastas.  The waiter, using his phone, was able to ask us if we wanted anything else, so we also ordered a salad.  And we ordered water to drink because we know that word:  mizu!  All three of our pastas were very good, and Drew, using his iPhone again, told the waiter that we would certainly be back.

So, anyway, just Greer and I headed out to the swim meet this morning.  It was a good one for Cooper to miss since it ended up being extra long.  It was past 4:30 by the time Greer and I made it home.  Today she was swimming long events, so she just had four events instead of five.  She swam on the medley relay team (backstroke) and on the 400m freestyle relay team.  Her individual events were the 200m free and the 400m free.   The 400m free is a long event, and not too many middle school swimmers swim it during a meet.  Greer came in fourth, which she pooh-poohed as there were only 5 or 6 swimmers.  However, I thought it was pretty good, considering the third place swimmer barely beat her, and she was the only 12-year-old (and hasn't been 12 for long); all the other swimmers were 13 or 14.  Here's a picture of Greer on the bus on the way home:

Meanwhile, Drew went and picked up Cooper at his friend's house, and the two of them went to Bic Camera for some electronics.  They were unsuccessful on the new TV, but they did manage to buy a dehumidifier (for our basement), a toaster (ours does not seem to like Japan), a fan (we really miss our ceiling fans), and various power strips and adapters.  Cooper, however, was a little tired during the checkout process, while delivery was being arranged (yes, he's actually sleeping, not just closing his eyes):

Japanese word of the day:  mizu  (click to hear pronunciation) means "water"



Jan. 27, 2012 - Sixth Grade Intermission

I've been pretty caught up with the ocean shipment, so I forgot to share this exciting bit of news: we sold our house!  We actually got three offers on the house, and in consultation with Cartus, the relocation company, we accepted the best one.  Cartus now owns our house; the relocation company, on behalf of Exxon, buys the house from us, and then they are the people who deal with the sale to the new buyer.  We had only until the end of January to sell the house ourselves and be eligible for the incentive payment.  Otherwise, we would have had to take the company's guaranteed offer.  We made it with time to spare.  Yay!!

Since I'm working on the disaster that we currently call home, Greer is going to write today's entry so she can tell you about the "extended campus activity" in which the sixth grade recently got to participate.  Wednesday through Friday of this week is what is called "intermission" at the middle school, and each grade has a special program.  For sixth grade, the first two days the students have Japanese cultural experiences and special activities on campus.  The third day they participate in an exchange with a Japanese school.  Here's Greer:

On day one, we started at our advisory class and then we headed down to sumi-e (a kind of painting).  Our teacher taught us how to do bamboo, grapes, dragons, and many more!  Here is a picture of my favorite one!

I loved doing it, it was art in a new way!
After sumi-e, we headed down to Taekwondo (the teaching of kicking and punching).  The teacher told us that it was from Korea.  We learned the basic ten blocks, 2 different types of kicks, and 2 different types of punches.  After that activity, we headed down to the commons and (me and Zoe) watched people sing karaoke.  If you know me well enough, you know I would never ever go up and sing like everyone else did.  Finally, we had lunch.  I had a buttered bagel, vegetables, and some water.  Then right after lunch, we had a yakisoba cooking class with my homeroom teacher.  First we cut up all the vegetables.  Then we put the oil on the pan with the onions.  Once the onions were brown, we added peppers and cabbage.  Then they cooked for a while and we put in meat (don't worry, it was already cooked) and then the noodles with some sauce.  Bon Appetit! I brought it home and everyone tried it! :)

The next day, we started at taiko drumming.  It gave me a headache!  We yelled, shouted, and pounded on the drums!  It was sooooo loud!  Thankfully, the session eventually ended.  After that, we headed to zori. Zori are shoes woven from straw. Here is a picture of my masterpiece:

I am proud to say mine was the best in the class and everyone else's was falling apart because they didn't weave it tight enough!  Any way, I am glad mine turned out the way it was even though it could have been a little wider and a 1/2 inch shorter.  After that class, we had karaoke and lunch. After that, my class took a hike with Mr. Gibson through Nogawa Park.  After 1 mile of walking, we got to a statue of some sort and he told us that he has a story about it that he will tell us later when we get to a good spot.  So we walked some more and Mr.Gibson (a different story) told us about how in the 1900's, a farmer looking for young bamboo shoots was digging and then the ground started to cave in.  So he dug some more.  Then the farmer found a tomb and he contacted the nearest place where scientists were.  They found out that 12 thousand years ago, there had been people living in Japan.  So Japan built a little museum and Mr.Gibson brought the girls in for us to see first. He pointed out four skulls and he said see those 2?  And that one that is split in half?  And also that one that seems to be looking right at . . . Then he scares all the girls, well except for me and 2 others, by grabbing us all and screaming.  You should have seen it!  All the girls were screaming their heads off and the boys looked in the door and started laughing!  Well, it was funny.  So we started walking back to the school and we stopped at a pile of ashes in the middle of a rice farm, where Mr. Gibson told us another story (the one about the statue).  Everyone believed it until he said "Before you go to bed tonight, pray that Mr. Gibson will never tell you such a stupid story again."  (He has been telling this made-up story for 12 years.)


The next day, as soon as we arrived at school, we re-boarded the bus.  This time in color groups so that we could have groups at Chofu-Daiichi and there would be no confusion.  When we arrived, we were greeted by a Chofu-Daiichi student with a sign.  We put on slippers and followed them inside to the gym.  Their gym was freezing!  But after greetings, a game of dodgeball was organized.  Chofu-Daiichi aganist ASIJ!  Well, we took it easy on them the first game, but they beat us!  But on the second game we beat them!  But it was very close. . . . Next we got back organized in our color groups and we went to different activities.  The first one was where we drew japanese symbols.  I chose the symbol for sushi.  After that, we did some traditional Japanese games.  One of them was a game where you have 8 desks for each team.  There are 2 teams, 1 girl team and 1 boy team.  (The girls always won.)  Each team would stand on top of the desks and they would play rock, paper, scissors.  Every time a team lost, they would take away a desk.  You have to fit your whole team on the desks; if a person fell off or your team had 2 desks left, you lost.  It was really fun.  After part of the day with Chofu-Daiichi, we headed home on the buses with a partner from Chofu-Daiichi.  I got a quiet girl named Yume.  She tried to talk to me in Japanese, but after a few minutes she finally understood me when I said "I'm new, I don't speak Japanese."  So she asked me a question in English. "Do you swim?"  I said yes and she said she did too.  That was pretty much our whole conversation for 30 minutes.  Once we got to the school, I took her to the lunch room and put her stuff down by our table. I showed her the different options and made sure she got the one she wanted.  Once she was seated, I got shredded beef with bell peppers which in fact was very good.  After lunch, our group led the Japanese to many activities, including kickball, pictionary, and flag football.  Then we said goodbye and they took the train home!  End of story, ta da! Well, I finally remembered to take home my art stuff.

Jan. 25, 2012 - They came, they saw, they dumped stuff.

Remember what I said about it being better to receive the ocean shipment by myself than to wait a week until Andrew could stay home with me?  I was WRONG.  Our apartment looks like a moving truck threw up inside of it.  To complicate matters, the movers unpacked nearly every single box, so there are just random piles of stuff everywhere.  We would normally have the movers unpack very little so that we could unpack stuff as we were ready for it.  However, we’ve been told by others here to go ahead and have the movers do it.  That way they can remove all the packing material, which is more difficult to dispose of here than in the States.  However, when you have a mover in every room and only one person (me) to supervise and help, you get random piles of stuff everywhere.  Of course, the fact that I don’t speak Japanese and only one member of the moving crew spoke English did add a wrinkle to the situation.

When they were loading the books onto the bookshelves, they asked if they should put them in any particular order.  Why, yes, I would like fiction grouped together, alphabetized by author.  Poetry in another section, women's studies, sports stories, history.  Don't worry, I said no.

Oh, and we volunteered to have the Cub Scout den meeting (Cooper’s first meeting here) at our house on Feb. 5.  They normally meet at the U.S. Embassy, but their regular meeting place is unavailable that day.  We’ve hosted plenty of den meetings, so we said that they could have the meeting here (which also means we can’t get lost trying to find a new place).  However, that was before I realized that a moving truck was going to throw up inside our house.  So we have 10 days to create some semblance of order.  Did I mention that there are 15 boys in the den? 

P.S. In case you were wondering, yes, Andrew is at fault for me agreeing to take the ocean shipment this week instead of next.  He made it seem like it was the reasonable thing to do.  

Here's a Japanese word I actually used the past few days (to the movers, though I'm pretty sure Andrew should have been using it with me):

Japanese word of the day:  sumimasen  (click to hear pronunciation) means "I'm sorry"